Jay McEveley is pushing for a surprise return to Charlton's starting line-up less than a month after dislocating his shoulder playing for the Addicks.
It was feared the left-back, on loan from Derby County, would be sidelined for several months following the incident against Coventry City on December 9th.
But Charlton caretaker manager Phil Parkinson revealed on Christmas Eve that the full-back had already returned to training and he was considering recalling him for the Boxing Day match against Queens Park Rangers.
"Jay has trained a few days this week, and we will assess him again on Christmas Day,” said Phil, who has fielded youth product Grant Basey in the last two matches in McEveley's absence.
"He's looked fine in training, but we have to be sure he's OK and not going to do any more damage, and he has to be prepared to slide into tackles and so on."
McEveley's injury was the second dislocated shoulder that the club suffered in the space of four days, with Martin Cranie also affected. But it was feared that McEveley had sustained a fracture as well, which would mean a longer period on the sidelines.
"He is pushing for a recall," added Parkinson. "But we have to make sure he is confident with that shoulder."
The interim boss also offered positive news on the progress of Therry Racon and Zheng Zhi, although neither will be back before mid-January.
"We think Therry will be ready to train by the second week in January, but before then he will have done a lot of fitness work, so he should be able to join in on the training pitch straight away," explained Parkinson.
"ZiZi will be a week or so later. He should actually be running in 10 days, so those two won't be long and that will be a big bonus for everyone."
The injury update concluded with news that Yassin Moutaouakil and Kelly Youga had both been ill during the week, but not seriously, before talk moved on to Chris Dickson, who last week handed in a transfer request.
Parkinson revealed the club has yet to receive any bids for the Ghana international, saying: "We've not had any enquiries about a permanent deal for Dickson.
"We are looking for a fee for Chris if he moves on, so although there have been one or two calls from First Division clubs about taking him on loan, that's all."
On the subject of the Boxing Day match against QPR, Parkinson said he was unlikely to tamper with his side's formation even though Rangers play a slightly different system to most teams in the Championship.
"QPR do play a diamond formation, but sometimes you can keep throwing different formations at lads and it can have a negative effect," said Phil.
"If we can reproduce how we played against Derby, I don't think anyone would have any complaints - we just want the win as well."
He added: "When you play opposition with different systems you have to tweak things slightly, and that's what we'll do."
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Let Queers Park Rangers worry about us....!